The Western Nebraska Community College volleyball players were still bouncing off the walls with excitement after earning a spot in today’s NJCAA national championship match.
Two hours after earning the spot in the title match, assistant coach Amy Winters said the team was still wired with excitement. “They are wound up,” Winters said after the team had a late celebration supper Tuesday night. “They are bouncing off the walls and everybody is excited for Wednesday.”
Even before the team left the West Plains Civic Center, where the national tournament is played, they were still floating on air with excitement.
“I don’t think it has set in yet [that we are in the national championship match],” freshman Jenny Eichler said. “I think it will tonight when we are laying in bed ready to turn off the lights, not wanting to go to bed. We will be too excited to play. We can’t wait until 6 p.m. [Wednesday].
Yes, Wednesday and the national championship match. It is a match that no one really thought about at the beginning of the year, especially with such a young team with only two players back that played a year ago.
“At the beginning of the season, no I didn’t think we could do it,” Eichler said. “As the season progressed and we kept winning games, it showed that everything was coming together real well. It was about the middle of the year that we realized we could do it and once we got here, I knew we had a chance.”
Now, after 57 matches and 56 wins later, the team has achieved one of their goals and their next goal is a national championship.
“It is still unbelievable,” an excited Stacie Meisner said after downing North Idaho College for the title match berth. “We all know that it is one more step to achieve our total goals of the season and that is to get a national championship. We are not satisfied, yet, we have one more game to go.
“But, winning a national championship was always in the back of my mind. I think throughout the season, getting to the nationals was one step and getting a national championship was the next step. A national championship was always in the back of our minds, but we just wanted to take it one step at a time.”
The team didn’t really realize that a national championship was a reality until midway through the season. That was when the players realized, “Hey, we are good.” Just ask Cougar sparkplug Kendra Schauermann, who has high praise with how talented this team is.
“Our team is awesome. I knew we were going to make it here and I always knew we could do this. This is our year and we are going to win it,” Shauermann said. “We are definitely the best team here. We definitely improved to get here. We are the best team and we showed that for being the No. 1 seed. Iowa Western is an amazing team, but we know how to shut them down.”
The Cougars play at nationals, and even through the season, has people wondering whether this is one of the best teams ever at WNCC. The Cougar volleyball team’s appearance in a championship match will be only the second time a team has played for a national title. The first Cougar team who appeared in a national championship game was the 2003 when the women’s basketball team made it that far. On top of that, the women's basketball team, they weren't the favorite to get to the championship game, but put together three impressive wins, played as a champion, to get to the college's first title contest. After winning some impressive contestst, the women's basketball team they fell to a very talented Gulf Coast Community College team to finish second.
The Cougar volleyball team, on the otherhand, play a team that they already beat this year in two very tough games. The Cougar women might be the favorites to win the title after running through the season so far with a 56-1 record as well sitting atop the national polls for seven straight weeks, but Wednesday night the contest will be anyones for the taking.
The team knows that they still need to show up to play against a talented Iowa Western Community College squad.
“The win against North Idaho was huge. I can’t even exclaim it,” Eichler said. “But we
have to play that much harder [today] and if we play as well as we did tonight, hopefully we can win it.”
Meisner is still trying to pinch herself to see if it wasn’t a dream.
“It is really exciting right know. I can’t really put it into words,” she said. “It tops a great season. I don’t know what to really say right know except it is exciting.”
While the team remains at an all-time high, Barb Freitas said that they are looking forward to today’s title contest.
“It is awesome and I am so excited for [today]. I can’t wait. I want to win,” she said. “We worked so hard this victory and I am so proud of my team and my coach. [In today’s match] we have played against them before, but there is a lot of game and we have to play hard every single point, every single ball and we need to do our best.”
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